How I Stopped Translating in My Head and Started to THINK in English

do you find it hard to think in English are you always translating in your head do you speak slowly because you know first you have to think about your idea in your native language translate it to English and then say it believe me I know exactly how that feels after all I also had to learn English as a second language just like you so stick around because today we're going to share some tips with you to help you start thinking in English and say goodbye to translation once and for all so uh to get started with the topic todaya I have a little game for us to play it's a very simple one it it's not supposed to test you but it is supposed to kind of introduce the topic we're going to be discussing today already awesome so I have here three sentences but not full sentences I have beginning of sentences and I would like you to complete the sentence with your own idea all right uh only one condition make sure you end the sentence you you cannot start a new one all right so you take my initial idea you complete it and then the idea is complete fully complete okay so I should be creative but not too creative okay yeah yeah yeah let's leave it like that leave it at that okay so the first prompt that I have for you to finish is translating ore is a bad habit to have ah I like that and it is true guys it is a bad habit to have we're going to be talking all about that today great the second one is successful Learners can come up with unexpected responses to any question wow amazing and finally to stop over translating you need to start thinking in English there you go awesome so uh you did very well I liked your uh compliments to my original ideas thank you so before we start today's episode all about translating in her head and stop translation excuse me hello Ethan hey how's it going man yeah I'm just shamming a video here uh an intro for one of our podcast lessons why okay so I should tell the viewers to subscribe to the channel so they can go from feeling like LW insecure English Learners to becoming confident natural English speakers right all right yeah I'll do that thanks for the reminder talk to you soon sure Ethan you know um I don't have to tell you again what I just shared with him right I mean you got the message right okay so please subscribe the problem today that we're going to be addressing is translating too much in your head when speaking English why is that a problem and I see that happening so much with students uh you take much longer to come up with a sentence for example and as a teacher as an experienced teacher myself I know when the student is translating because usually when the student says something the word order or the sentence itself is a little bit off or weird so to me it's a clear indication that the person is still translating in their head so how can we fix thisum so I'm going to throw it to you I me what is one thing that our followers should start doing more to fix that I think we should be honest with our viewers with our listeners that's not easy right but the good thing is like any other skill like we talk a lot about speaking in English and practicing speaking and reading and listening and having a lot of uh practice right with those skills but thinking in English is just another skill so you can train your brain to think in English right it's possible it's doable and just to give you some I don't know some idea of how you can do that uh I wanted to share with you guys that for me personally thinking in English is very close to this idea of um improvisation is because thoughts come to us randomly right like uh more often than not we are not in control of our thoughts like let's say like okay here I am crossing the road and suddenly I find myself thinking about my relationships are we moving in the right direction or in the same Direction with my partner or I'm trying to decide whether to buy this super expensive uh I don't know gym membership right or rather save money for some trip thoughts just pop out of nowhere so when you are in a conversation the same happens there you just like have random thoughts random questions and you have to think uh on your feet right like right away on spot um and here uh it's very difficult to keep to keep up with that pace of the thoughts that appear in your head if you have this bad habit of translating right you just don't you can't keep up and I really like this saying that they uh I wonder if you heard it chea so there is this saying let me quote it actually I have it here preparation breeds spontaneity so let me repeat preparation breeds spontaneity in this context what does it mean to breed generates or produces they create something yeah so it it may sound weird and counterintuitive because improvisation is something we do right now without planning it like naturally so how can you prepare for something that you are not planning here's this trick here's this thing the solid F Foundation which you get when you prepare with knowledge skills and practice allow you to build on top of that and then have that confidence and creativity to respond to any unexpected situation right so in our case in learning English what is this knowledge right this knowledge is grammar vocabulary right the structure of the sentence what you mentioned you don't want to compose it uh along the process like you were speaking Yeah you want to give the right structure and skills would be that speaking in English analyzing processing it yeah thinking about response and having a conversation and practice we I I think we talked about uh this with you like you have to build a habit habit of deliberately thinking in English and there are tons of simple exercises how to do that right I I think we had a lesson on that like start simple start with just describing everything you see in English that's already first step towards thinking in English right do you agree oh yeah absolutely I really like this point that you're making about uh being more comfortable with improvisation and improvising because it's about being present in the moment and being okay with the unexpected you did use a nice some nice Expressions D first of all I remember you said thinking on your feet what is that I mean when you think on your feet uh it's uh again SP thinking spontaneously right in spot when you were ask something like you're thinking on your feet like in that moment so if a person always translates in their head that person is not really thinking on their feet because there's always that wall or that delay also right delay right okay let me translate it first and then I'm going to say something in English right sometimes it takes eternity right to choose the right auxiliary verb and you don't want to do that rather make a mistake but you know go on that makes a lot of sense because if you think about it uh we try to help people here speak English in real life in the real world and real conversation in the real world is usually random unexpected so you got to be okay with improvisation with uh dancing according to the music right let's say so I really like that point that reminds me of um a student of mine at first when we started having classes together she struggled a lot with this she would always translate in the in her head uh to communicate her ideas and not only did That Make Her speech much slower but also like I said earlier a bit weird in terms of sentence construction but then you know um I talked to her about this and uh she became aware of that and now consciously deliberately every class she tries not to think in this case in Portuguese but always in English and you know what her communication skills have gotten so much better because of that now she's speaking with more fluidity and the sentences she's actually uh coming up with make sense now so sometimes we it's just a matter of trusting our intuition right because sometimes we think that we don't know uh much but actually we know much more than we think if we just Let It Go yeah that's true and I wonder what played the key part there in her transition from translating to thinking in English was it like I don't know immersion into language enough or just like this deliberate thinking always in English and how to do that like for example if uh our listener or viewer now asks okay I want to think in English but like how do I start thinking in English yeah I would say both points she she's a wonderful student that I have and uh she's very committed and she does practice her English every day so that's the first point and I believe you're going to uh expend more on this topic soon about uh living your English and uh connecting it to your interest so she does that already but also the deliberate aspect of it uh because uh that was something that we discussed multiple times in our classes uh the importance of letting go of translation and just using the English you already have because you know some English already that you can use so the combination of these two things I would say uh have played a a key role for her awesome yeah you already mentioned like um how we can connect it to leave your English idea uh that we are teaching in our methodology right it's that it like anything you would have to do deliberately you'll have to put in effort into that and it won't work long term if you don't enjoy enjy the process so you you have to trick the system you have to choose what you already enjoy right so we want to talk about it again and again because this is such a simple thing that sometimes students just overl look but that that just really simple so imagine you have your interest you have your hobbies you know you are into photography or you into potery or beekeeping or Brewery I don't know to choose yours uh learn about it in English so you know already a lot about the topic in your native language and that's what might prevent you from thinking in English because you rely too much on your native tongue you rely too much on that information that you got in your native language about this topic now start learning something new or reviewing what you already know but in English right you will have that immersion because you know even to internalize those language patterns not to think about language structure you have to get yourself immersed enough amount of time into language so start with that find some videos time find some podcast about the topic you like and listen to it just to immerse in language right and another thing is what I talked about in the past to be well prepared for improvisation you have to have a solid foundation so with immersing yourself into language you expand your vocabulary right and um that's that that what it gives you speaking on topics close to you first makes perfect sense and like you said it's something so simple and small that many people Overlook you use that word what does that mean when you overlook something don't pay enough attention or don't pay attention at all just like right you're doing something but then you overlook some other stuff yeah that's it by the way guys um as you can notice we have been defining some really nice words and expressions today so make sure to download the real life English app so you can review all this vocabulary from today's podcast and practice it over there all right don't forget to download it so yeah really like what you're saying sna because we start with the topics we are interested in first that makes it much easier to start thinking in English and then after we feel comfortable with those we can Branch out and start maybe dealing with topics that are not so familiar to us but you know it's always nice to stretch our minds and our language skills right I really like that um one point I would make also about this is the importance of embracing uncertainty I feel like students translate a lot sometimes because they crave they need that feeling of certainty I need to feel sure about what I'm saying so first I need to translate but if you do that that's never going to you know make you fluent because you will always have that insecurity that security blanket as I like to call it you know uh when I was a kid I used to have one I used to have a security blanket it was this uh little piece of cloth I was three four years old and I carry that thing with me all the time I love this Mell of it I always laughed with it and I used to I remember I used to call it Nana you know it was my nana you know that little piece of cloth there but then one day my mother threw it away I think uh when I was five uh she just threw it away because she realized that okay I mean it's time to outgrow this Chagu so no more na yeah you are growing you are growing up so I remember that when I realized that I didn't have it anymore I felt scared uh I felt insec Ure I felt lost and bringing that to English learning once you start thinking more in English and not relying so much on translation maybe at first you're going to feel a little lost you're going to feel a little scared that's okay but it's part of growing up as a language learner you have to mature you have to grow up and it's part of the process so keep doing it and you will see that you you're going to start feeling more comfortable with not relying on translation it's also like you know embracing your inner child maybe right I really love that collocation by the way to embrace your inner child what is your inner something this is something that's deep inside related to your inner world right I love that yeah just like your inner thoughts for example yeah the thoughts that come inside of you right come from inside coming from inside right you know playing guitar is a skill that demands many hours of [Music] practice you make mistakes you spend hours and hours in your room just practicing learning songs it can be frustrating sometimes the boy is a [Music] fun and you know what something very similar is English learning learning English is very similar to learning how to play an instrument like the guitar for example if you want to be a great English speaker you need to practice a lot of English and we have the perfect resource for you to add more practice to your daily routine with English the real life English app with the app can practice new words and expressions using intelligent flashcards our app works with a space repetition system which presents you with the words you're trying to learn at strategic times so you never forget them again here's what one of our app users has to say overall this app was great their teaching skills were well organized and filled with confidence I can trust them because I've been watching their YouTube videos for a long time this testimonial comes from Lee so what are you waiting for join tens of thousands of Learners who use the real life English app every day to get confident English start rocking your English with the app today all [Music] right [Music] yeah I just wanted to uh you know to add something to what I was saying about um immersion and everything we started talking about like hobbies and uh um learning about topics you already know in English right here I wanted to say that I strongly believe in that but I but uh no I think it's better to say that it's actually a fact that language is um Inseparable from culture so take advantage there and um really in order to start thinking in English you should treat English uh as a friend so when we have a a new friend who really want to know more about their interest about how they behave about how they react to this or that so let's come back again to that um example from Hobbies most probably you learned something new when you watch some videos related to your hobby but from the native's perspective don't you want to know how for example Americans approach beekeeping or how Australia incorporate some Aboriginal traditions in potery when they do Pottery as a hobby or when I don't know breeds have hobby have brewery as their Hobby and I don't know was it a joke or something that every second household in rural England England has their own home brewery or something but you know when you will be watching those videos in English you will be expanding your vocabulary and you will be putting yourself in those people's shoes right you'll see uh with new eyes on the things that's already familiar to you and vocabulary will stick naturally and more easily because this is something you enjoy this is something you are curious about this is something that is close to you there is this emotional uh aspect to it mhm I think it uh it's worth defining Brewery because you've used this word a couple of times uh in this episode so Brewery is the process of making beer right you brew beer you make beer correct M correct correct and Brewery is like a workshop or like a place where you do that it can be like a factory or it can be like at home like homeade beer yeah but you know that point you made is really uh important as well um not only consuming content on topics that you like but also from the native speakers perspective Americans uh British Australian because you know the the reference is also important yeah I mean what kind of English are you U exposing yourself to on a daily basis that that that is also going to directly contribute to your ability to think in English and to speak English because it influences the way we communicate right yeah and learning language always goes like hand inand with learning about the cultures and tradition of that um of people who speak that language right of that country treat yeah that is true um I would also say you know you mentioned earlier about the importance of embracing your inner child and connected to that I think that it's also important for you to speak be okay with speaking like a child at least at first this is one way for you to get rid of translation once and for all uh sna let's do a let's let's do a a little mental picture here okay picture uh an adult in know Home Country in Ukraine who is very successful uh in his or her field professionally speaking in my case I picture here in Brazil a successful lawyer I picture a a Brazilian lawyer who uh communicates extremely well in Portuguese already the person is articulate the person is eloquent in Portuguese the person has written articles related to law the person is really well accomplished all right who do you picture oh that's a nice question question I don't know I thought of maybe an owner of a restaurant of a fancy restaurant you would call them Chef right yeah so um or a restaurant tour we can say oh what an advanced word right right so French sound so French right but anyway um going back to the lawyer that I pictur okay I said that he is very articulate very eloquent in Portuguese do you think that if he is a pre-intermediate or intermediate speaker of English do you think that he's going to be able to communicate as fluently as eloquently in English as he can in Portuguese that depends on the context right I believe like if he has some informal meeting with his clients uh informal yeah he will do pretty much fine right it will be like great but maybe he would need a little bit more practice and not knowledge if he goes into a legal uh context in English right that is absolutely true and that's exactly my point because uh I see that sometimes in students because usually my students they are uh well accomplished professionals already you know they are usually at the peak of their career and they are successful in whatever it is they do professionally but the English is the thing that you know holds them back and uh I feel this frustration sometimes like you know I know they can communicate wonderfully in Portuguese for example but in English they want to communicate at the same high level but they can't yet because they don't have the tools for that yet in English so it's important to be okay with maybe speaking more childish at first or not as uh as a grownup as you would like to speak because you are still in the process of learning the language that's my point but if you keep doing it you will get to that point where you're going to be maybe expressing yourself in English similarly to the way you express yourself in your native language in terms of uh sophistication I mean yeah you just reminded me of an video I watched last week with a French director her movie was nominated for Oscar and she was given interview and so her English was like you're saying she was okay in uh you know maybe in the bar with her friends but when she was giving interview she was like really making such great effort and she was such a like doing great job with that like she tried to answer all the questions in English she was struggling but she was trying but when it came to some really specific questions that she really wanted to express her thought clearly she switched to French and turned uh for help for her interpreter mhm look at that so that happens right happens yeah it does happen but it's part of the process um well let's do a quick wrap up here or let's say recap of some of the points we have already covered today so how can you get rid of translation first of all you have to actively deliberately train your brain to think in English it has to be deliberate and intentional right what else have we covered today so start something that is close to you I mean like start thinking about things that are close to you learn more about your hobbies from the Native perspective that will give you the certain amount of new vocabulary and and confidence to talk about something you love in English and think about it right nice and finally like I said embracing uncertainty and embracing your inner child be okay with sounding a little bit childish or not as sophisticated as you doing the first language and get rid of that security blanket grow up let's say grow up as an English learner and stop translating just you know like my mom did with me you know when I was five you know grow up you know you don't have age anymore to use the this blanket thing anymore NOA um I shared with you this week that nice video from willsmith about skydiving did you get a chance to watch it yeah I wished it I wish it that was nice I mean that was fun and thought-provoking oh what is something thought-provoking uh it means that that video made me think about some things right actually I think uh we can watch um a little bit of it now because I really like the point that he's making in that video about fear and how that point connects exactly with what we are talking about today of being okay with improvising being in unexpected situations and getting rid of that security that safety net so uh our producer hbert is here with us in the studio today and he's going to play a little bit of this video Let's watch it two and he pushes you on two because people grab on three and you fall out of the airplane and in one second you realize that it's the most Blissful experience of your life you're [Music] flying there's zero fear you realize at the point of Maximum danger is the point of minimum fear the lesson for me was why were you scared in your bed the night before what do you need that fear for everything up to the stepping out there's actually no reason to be scared and then in that moment all of a sudden where you should be terrified is the most Blissful experience of your life and God placed the best things in life on the other side of fear wow I like this unexpected realization he shared with us that and suddenly I realized why I had that fear yesterday like it was no use right to feel that uh fear he used the word Blissful once he jumped off the plane he described the experience as being Blissful what is something Blissful he also says the word like blessing so they're related Blissful at blessing this is something that that is extremely Pleasant something like you are blessed with you endowed with this um Divine emotion of I know blissfulness yeah we also say that we are in awe right yeah we are in awe like wow we feel euphoric yeah Euphoria yeah um but I really like that point you see I mean uh Mo his basic Point here is uh the main idea is the best things in life are past the fear yeah so if you get if you can get past fear you will uh access those wonderful things that life has in store so uh bringing that to the topic of uh today if you are okay with experiencing that insecurity that fear of not translating and just uh communicating fully in English uh you will realize that it's actually something Blissful that you can experience once you finally get rid of that uh need to translate and then you realize that oh you know what why was I so insecure so afraid of letting go of translation and guys we actually did a lesson in the past with some practical tips how to practice this skill of thinking in English that that we can link in the description to this video right uh if I'm not mistaken it was actually my first appearance on our YouTube channel to together with our other teammates remember our team members were giving their tips how they practice that skill I remember that yeah awesome wonderful talk todaya so now let's move on to what we have been digging this [Music] week so uh I want to tell about yesterday's experience that was dedicated to today because today in Ukraine we celebrate St Valentine's Day this day of recording is uh February 4th 14th celebrating it's an international holiday besides Brazil right Thiago you celebrated in June I don't know yeah yeah we do it in anyway anyway yesterday I visited the speaking Club again Where We Gather group of people speaking in English and we have a certain topic and yesterday this the topic of course was St Valentine's Day and we had a debate so there was team boys team girls it happened so that we were uh equal number of participants boys and girls uh and there was this question we discussed and debated about does love at first sight exist Chago how do you think just short answer to this question uh no I don't believe that yeah okay but can I can I explain very briefly why you're welcome I say no because I believe that love doesn't happen at first sight I believe that maybe attraction happens desire happens happens at First Sight uh my concept of Love is something that is actually developed over time it's never a first first s yeah yeah that was my point as well and that's what I wanted to bring to our viewers today and to our listeners of the podcast is that yesterday when we were debating and we were discussing our points our arguments we can bring in our team I really felt lack of this word I wanted so we used a lot of times the word chemistry so also we thought that okay you need that chemistry to develop later that longer uh lasting romantic relationship or love but at first it's just chemistry but then I like we kept using this word over and over again and I and I felt like no we're missing something and like I came back home and I then checked like I read about those you know debates the discussion about love at first sight and then I found that word that I wanted so this word guys is infatuation so in most cases that's not love at first s what you do feel is infatuation just like a light of feeling it's not a love yet like you you got um your point was really right there like love is something you develop with time right really nice word by the way uh but now I guess we can throw it to our viewers here and listeners what do you guys think do you believe in love at first sight do you think that love at first sight actually exists share your thoughts and let us know but this is a really cool uh topic to discuss I imagine having a nice debate about that yeah yeah we had a blast it was nice that's great uh what I've been digging SAA actually was something that one of our team members actually humed our producer here shared with us this week it was this system for taking notes uh I think it's a German system if I remember corre correctly and it's called zet Casten or zet Casten and I found this this system really interesting it's a system to take smart notes and I like how simple it is uh basically it breaks it down into three simple notes that you take uh you can take fleeting notes which are thoughts random thoughts like you you you said earlier right that come to your head and you want to capture them somewhere and then we have the literature notes which are notes from things you consume so in today's episode we talked about the importance of living your English consuming content on topics that are interesting uh for you so you can use the the literature notes to capture information from a movie that you watched a book that you read or a podcast that you listen to and finally the permanent notes these are the notes with your Consolidated ideas in your own words that you want to store uh for life so uh I found this system for taking notes really interesting and I'll uh it got me curious to learn more about it it's called zetan Casten zetel to be specific Z yeah German system tend to be very reliable right so I believe it works we should all try it it was a wonderful talk that we had today and you guys out there I hope you enjoyed today's podcast and I hope that this episode helped you rethink your relationship with translation and uh hopefully now you feel more inspired to get rid of that security blanket and start speaking fully in English without translation right s oh yeah uh for you guys to support us a free way to do it is by subscribing to our YouTube channel if you're not a subscriber yet if you are listening on Spotify or apple podcast or anywhere else leave us a festar review that really helps us and remember guys that no matter what divides us that witchitis is far greater thank you so much for tuning in and stay tuned for next week's episode with more cool content coming your way 3 2 1 a oh yeah so almost every English learner that I meet sounds a bit like this I need to go to the store and buy some milk that doesn't sound very natural only the most fluent English Learners are able to tap into the secret that helps them to sound more like I need to go to the store and buy some milk that sounds much better doesn't it just the way that Chiago said there go to the store go to the store instead of go to the store that sounds a lot more like a native and let's take a look at what is the secret that these fluent English speakers know that you don't know yet

Channel: RealLife English

Views: 703,892

Keywords: reallife english, real life english, podcast, english podcast, podcast in english, listen, listening, comprehension, practice, conversation, pronunciation, native, connected speech, english lesson, class, advanced, intermediate, fluency, fluent, english course, ingles, ingles intermediario, curso ingles, fluencia, podcast ingles, aprender ingles podcast, aprender ingles, aula ingles, conversação, vocabulary, translate, translation, think, think english, think in english

Id: GUGCy82NFQA

Length: 36min 39sec (2199 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 04 2024